“Certainly not,” replied Barbara with repellent harshness.  “I never gave you a right to speak to me of love; but, above all, I shall not seek the sharer of a game of question and answer in the street.”

“Then name a place,” he whispered with passionate ardour, trying meanwhile to clasp her hand, “where I may be permitted, in broad sunlight and before the eyes of the whole world, to say to you what robs me of rest by day and sleep by night.  Drop the cruel harshness which so strangely and painfully contradicts the language of your glances the evening of the last dance.  Your eyes have kindled these flames, and this poor heart will consume in their glow if I am not suffered to confess to you that I love you with more ardour than was ever bestowed on any maiden.  This place—­I will admit that it is ill-chosen—­but what other was open to me?  After all, here, too, a bit of the sky with its many stars is looking down upon us.  But, if you still unkindly refuse me, or the dread of crossing the barrier of strict decorum forbids you to listen to me here, you can mercifully name another spot.  Allow me to go to your father and beg him for the clear hand which, in a happier hour, by not resisting the pressure of mine, awakened the fairest hopes in my heart.”

“This is too much,” Barbara indignantly broke in.  “Make way for me at once, and, if you are well advised, you will spare yourself the visit to my father; for, even if you were in earnest with your love and came as an honest suitor to our modest house, it might easily happen that you would descend the staircase, which is very steep and narrow, in as sorrowful a mood as you climbed it secure of victory.”

Then Pyramus Kogel changed his tone, and said bitterly: 

“So your victorious eyes were only carrying on an idle game with my unsuspecting heart?  You laugh!  But I expected to find in my German native land only girls whose chaste reserve and simple honesty could be trusted.  It would be a great sorrow if I should learn through you, Jungfrau Barbara, that here, too, it would have been advisable to arm myself against wanton deception.  True, the French chansons you sing sound unlike our sincere German songs.  And then you, the fairest of the fair, can choose at will among men; but the Emperor’s service carries me from one country to another.  I am only a poor nobleman—­”

“I care not,” she interrupted him here with icy coldness; “you might be just good enough for the daughter of another nobleman, who has little more to call his own than you, Sir Knight, but nevertheless far too little for me to grant you permission to load me with unjust reproaches.  Besides, you wholly lack the one advantage which the man to whom I am willing to betroth myself must possess.”

“And what is that?” he asked eagerly.